


The Drive

by Deannie



Series: Moments [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Post-Avengers (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 23:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5225954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re going to get in trouble with the missus,” Natasha told him quietly. </p><p>“Did you forget the standard post-brainwashing procedure?” he asked. It was just on the edge of twisting a knife—like his comment about being unmade back on the helicarrier—and she ignored the subtle venom this time, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Drive

**Author's Note:**

> For the hc_bingo prompt brainwashing/deprogramming. 
> 
> Takes place right after the last scene in _The Avengers_.

It was no surprise at all when Clint started driving toward DC instead of the nearest airport. He wasn’t planning on obeying Fury’s order to hole up and make themselves scarce, clearly. 

“You’re going to get in trouble with the missus,” Natasha told him quietly. 

“Did you forget the standard post-brainwashing procedure?” he asked. It was just on the edge of twisting a knife—like his comment about being unmade back on the helicarrier—and she ignored the subtle venom this time, too. 

She’d done the standard procedure herself: locked in a room, hooked to constant monitoring, interviewed twice daily by psych while they tried to confirm that whatever was done to you was over now. Confirm that you weren’t a danger to yourself or others—especially others. He’d been standing outside that locked room the whole time, waiting for her. She’d do the same if it would actually do any good. And if SHIELD hadn’t already rejected the notion. 

“I remember psych shaking their heads and saying there was nothing to monitor,” she replied. She and Clint and Stark had all been beat up enough to need a trip to medical, and the deprogramming team had had time to assess him between the Avengers saving the world and sending the mastermind off to prison. Or whatever… “What do you think Odin’s going to do with him?” she asked suddenly, changing the subject so that she could come back to it when he wasn’t looking. 

“Maybe you’re right,” he grated, teeth ground together so tightly she was amazed to be able to understand him at all. “Maybe Odin’s got a paddle ready for him.” His snort hurt just to hear. “Though starting an interdimensional war might be a baseball bat offense.” 

Natasha sighed at the flat tone. She’d been glad to get at least a tiny grin from Clint when she’d turned to him in the park and whispered, “Maybe Odin’s got a woodshed out back, like your dad.” It had been a reminder of what Clint had already survived in his life—even before joining SHIELD. A childhood of hell had given him a resilience that few agents had. One of the reasons Coulson had always kept Clint close… 

Her phone buzzed, shaking her away from the thought that would have stopped her cold. Laura’s text was short and worried. 

`Still hasn’t called me. Nat, is he really okay?`

Natasha raised her phone, not showing Clint the screen but using it as a visual aid. “I told you you’d be in trouble.” 

Clint shrugged, though the stiffness from the battle stilted the motion. “She knows the drill.” 

“No one knows this drill, Clint,” she shot back. He accelerated as he made it out of Manhattan and hit the open road. “There’s no drugs in your system. No posthypnotic suggestion that they can find. Gods and magic, Barton—both of them taken away in chains.” 

“Right,” he replied blithely, the normalcy of it fake and brittle and almost laughable. “It’ll be safer for me in DC.” 

“Safer for them.” Natasha shook her head as Clint’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Clint, I won’t let anything happen.” 

He laughed at that. “You couldn’t really stop it the first time.” 

Which was true. No one had been able to stop Loki at the beginning. But Thor had him back on Asgard and Natasha firmly believed that that was the end of it, as far as his power over Clint was concerned. The real danger now was the fear. Almost worse, really, since it was keeping him from getting what he needed to heal. 

“I can smack you in the head with a shovel if I have to,” she said flatly. She let her tone go curious and light. “Though since it’s a farm, should it be a pitchfork?” 

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he replied, a ghost of humor in the tone. The ghost was gone when he spoke again. “It isn’t safe, Nat. _I’m_ not safe.” 

“Neither was I, but you brought me home anyway.” She remembered the day she’d met Laura Barton. She’d been clear of the drugs for almost a month and hadn’t had a flashback in a week, and she’d stood in Clint Barton’s front hall and stared at the place and almost laughed at the complete idiocy of him allowing her into his home after she’d sent five agents to the hospital and killed another, all under the influence of a very sadistic terrorist. 

“You were fine,” he refuted, completely missing his own hypocrisy. “You were clean by then, Nat. You just needed a safe place to be.” 

“So do you.” 

He shook his head vehemently. “No—” 

“You can’t go to Washington, Clint, and you know it.” She sighed. “You’re already seeing blame in every face around you—and yes, I have eyes. What are you going to do when you run into some asshole like Farell. He really _will_ blame you.” 

“Because it’s—” 

“Clint, you shot Fury in the chest.” He froze, but she continued ruthlessly. He didn’t let her play this game five years ago, and she wasn’t letting him do it now. “You knew he was wearing the bulletproof vest, and a headshot would have been cleaner if you didn’t.” She looked out the side window with calculated nonchalance. 

They drove in silence for a long minute before he finally whispered, “Nat, I almost killed you—” 

“Now you’re just exaggerating—” 

“And Phil is dead.” 

That stopped her, the utter self-loathing in his tone and the brutal truth she’d been trying to cast from her mind for the last three days curling her insides into something painful and cracked. 

“I know,” she whispered. “But that’s on Loki. It all is.” 

“I can’t go home,” he muttered desperately. “Not yet.” 

“And you can’t go anywhere else.” She let the truth of her words sink in for a long moment. Waited until his shoulders predictably dropped in defeat. “I won’t let anything happen,” she repeated. “I’ll even sleep on the floor in your bedroom.” 

That got her a true grin. Finally. “Well, that’d certainly make sure nothing happened.” He blew out a shaky breath. “Give me your phone.” 

Natasha called up Laura’s contact information and handed the device off to him, pretending not to hear him as he cleared his throat and whispered, “Hey honey…” 

He’d be all right. Given time. She thought back to the park: the exhaustion and shadows in Stark’s eyes, the pain and confusion in Banner’s, the utter disappointment in Thor’s. Time was what they all needed. It’d be nice if the next world crisis could wait a couple of years, but she was increasingly sure that wasn’t an option. 

At least they had a team to deal with it, when it came. 

“Hey! I was busy!” Clint whined defensively into the phone. He pulled off his sunglasses and begged with his human-blue eyes for her to rescue him. 

As imperfect as that team was. 

******  
the end


End file.
